Last month, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that he does not believe the
Iranian regime has decided to pursue a nuclear weapons program, and
that it would not be “prudent” for Israel to consider a military
strike against Iran. General Dempsey
went on to state, “We are of the opinion that the Iranian
regime is a rational actor.” For his part, in a subsequent video to
viewers, Zakaria indicated that he “very much”
agreed:
A rational actor is not a reasonable actor, is not somebody who
has the same goals or values as we have. What one means by rational
actor in international affairs or economics or any time the word is
used, is somebody who is concerned about their survival, their
prosperity or strength, and is making calculations on the basis of
that — that is, calculating costs and benefits. And we all assume
Iran is a rational actor. Even the most hawkish people in this
debate, because they assume that the pressure will make a
difference. How could it make a difference? Well, because Iran is
watching the costs, calculating them, and presumably will recognize
that the costs outweigh the benefits.
Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad, concurs. In an
interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, Dagan
characterized Iran as having “a very rational regime” and said he
considers Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be “rational,”
though perhaps “not exactly our rational.” Dagan also
opposes an Israeli strike, and he
echoes Zakaria in his rationale:
No doubt that the Iranian regime is maybe not exactly rational
based on what I call Western-thinking, but no doubt they are
considering all the implications of their actions.
Despite the public testimony of these respected military,
academic, and intelligence figures, I simply am not convinced that
the Iranian regime is a rational actor. General Dempsey bases his
opinion on the notion that Iran has not yet decided whether it will
develop nuclear weapons. Such an assessment is, at best, wishful
thinking and, at worst, willful blindness.
Meanwhile, Zakaria believes Iran is engaged in a cost-benefit
analysis and “presumably will recognize that the costs outweigh the
benefits,” which would lead it to give up its pursuit of nuclear
weapons. But that is an awfully big presumption. Frankly, it is
difficult to imagine a scenario under which the present Iranian
regime would voluntarily abandon this program unless, of course, it
made such a pledge, only to break it by enriching uranium under the
nose of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even assuming
Iranian leaders were to do an about-face, would it be wise to trust
their word any more than that of the North Koreans, who have been
lying to us for nearly two decades about the state of their nuclear
program? Does Zakaria believe North Korea is a rational actor?
Under his definition, as long as the North Korean regime is
concerned with its survival, prosperity, and strength; as long as
it is making calculations on that basis, then it is rational actor.
But if Iran and North Korea are rational, then who is
irrational?
Zakaria recounted what an Iranian official told him about five
years ago. This unnamed official said it would be perfectly
rational for Iran to pursue a nuclear weapons, because its
neighbors have nukes, because the U.S. had 100,000 troops in Iraq
and 100,000 in Afghanistan, and because President George W. Bush
was calling for the regime’s downfall:
“Now if you were in our position, wouldn’t that make you
nervous, and wouldn’t you want to buy some kind of insurance?”
So that doesn’t sound like the talk of mad, Messianic regime,
but rather one that’s looking at costs, benefits and
calculating.
Five years later, President Bush has long since left office.
President Obama has expressed no desire for regime change in
Tehran. The last U.S. troops left Iraq in December, and one-third
of all American troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of this
year. Yet despite these changes on the ground, Iran’s leaders still
openly speak of wiping Israel off the face of the earth. This
leaves pure, unadulterated hatred as the only possible motivation
for Iran’s disposition toward Israel. Just as Adolf Hitler viewed
Jews as a cancer to be expunged, Iran’s Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has
called Israel “a cancerous tumor.” As Lee C. Shapiro, regional
director of the American Jewish Committee in
Cleveland, notes:
Some say that this danger is wildly exaggerated, since Iran
would never begin a nuclear war that would lead to its own
devastation by Israeli retaliation. Yet it is worth recalling that
Nazi Germany transferred sorely needed men and resources from the
front lines in order to speed up the killing of Jews, suggesting
that ideologically driven regimes may act even against their own
national interests in pursuit of their diabolical ideals.
Now Zakaria might argue there is a difference between a rational
and a reasonable actor. But considering that it is not far-fetched
to believe Iran is prepared to deploy a nuclear weapon against the
only country in the world with a Jewish majority, that logical hair
is too thin to split. Trying, you could even say, would be
downright irrational.
